Isabelle's 36-save performance lifts Leominster

The Leominster boys' hockey team turned to Cameron Isabelle in a big, early-season Roy Conference matchup against Nashoba Regional.

Isabelle was fantastic in his second start of the season, making 36 saves, including all nine in the decisive third period, as Leominster posted a 5-3 Division 3 triumph over the Chieftains on Saturday night at Fitchburg State University's Wallace Civic Center.

"Isabelle had a great game," Leominster coach Casey Beaulac said. "The first period he was the star of the game, and at the end he made a couple big saves coming across and holding his post. He stepped us for us big time today."

Nashoba coach Trevor Short credited Isabelle on a job well done in net.

"The difference was the goaltending," Short said. "I thought their goaltender played really well."

But it was junior Theo Reynolds who played the hero role in the third period.

With the game knotted at

3-3, the Blue Devils killed off a Nashoba power play. Seconds later Reynolds was skating up the ice on a 2-on-1 break.

Reynolds, charging hard on the left wing, elected to keep the puck and fired a shot to the far side of the net that beat the Nashoba goalie just above his pad for the eventual game-winner at 9:39.

"We killed the penalty and the defense coughed it up in the neutral zone," said Reynolds, who had two goals. "All I had to do was pick it up and bring it to the net.

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The coaches have been preaching to us to finish and it felt good to do it for a second time."

Added Beaulac: "It was great to be able to get off that kill and to turn it around into an odd-man rush."

Nick LeBlanc added an empty-net goal for the 5-3 final.

"Take nothing away from Leominster, I thought they played a hard, physical game as I knew they would and they are well-coached," Short said. "I thought it was a quality high school hockey game. I'm disappointed that we lost, but I'm not disappointed with the effort."

Leominster improved to 2-2 overall and 1-1 in the Roy. Nashoba is 0-2 (0-2 Roy).

"Last year we were on the wrong side of those scores," Beaulac said. "We're feeling like the kids understand what they need to do to win those type of games now. It was good to see it.

"The character of these guys, they want it. They've learned a lot of lessons over the last couple of years, and now they know what it takes to win. They knew this was going to be a hard-fought battle."

Leominster's defense buckled down in the final two periods and held Nashoba to a combined 17 shots after yielding 22 in the first period alone.

"The second and third period, we played much better defensively and we got a lot more offense coming out of our defensive-zone effort," Beaulac said. "Being able to hold them down in shots over the final two periods when they had 22 in the first, that was something we were concentrating on after that first period."

It was up-and-down action in the first period. While Nashoba's offense overpowered the Leominster defense, outshoting the Devils 22-9 in the first period, the game was at a deadlocked 1-1 at the first break.

"We didn't come out the way we wanted to come out," Beaulac said. "I think the kids were squeezing the sticks and trying too hard."

Nashoba struck first on the man advantage. Nashoba cycled the puck beautifully, as Andrew Kerble connected with Dan Kerble on a cross-ice pass, and Dan Kerble hammered a one-timer from the circle that sizzled into the back of the net for the power-play goal at 5:29.

But Leominster, which rode the hot goaltending of Isabelle in the first period, got its offense untracked in the middle of the period, eventually tying the game at 8:18.

"We decided to play meaner and more gritty," Reynolds said.

Jake Hudson corralled a bouncing puck to the right of Nashoba goalie Nicholas Kischitz and banged home a goal into the short side of the net, assisted by Colby Doiron and Anthony Tocci (2 assists).

The great action, which included some bone-rattling checks from both squads, continued in a wide-open second period as the teams combined to score four goals.

The scoring action started at 8:31, as Nick LeBlanc's shot from the point was turned away.The rebound popped out to Reynolds on the left post and he banged it in to put Leominster up 2-1 on the power-play tally.

Nashoba responded three minutes later on Ryan LeBlanc's shot that tipped off the goalie's glove and went into the net.

Nashoba pushed ahead 3-2 at 12:47, as one of the best players in Central Mass., junior Bryce Chaput, netted a backhand goal, assisted by Ryan LeBlanc and William Chapman.

Leominster wouldn't back down and knotted it up on Hudson's second goal of the evening.

Hudson went to his deadly wrister from the left circle to beat the Nashoba netminder. Doiron and Tocci assisted on the tying goal at 13:38.

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